When the uncountable counts: An alternative to monitoring employee performance

This article presents an alternative viewpoint to the accepted wisdom that detailed performance measurement of individual employees is necessary to achieve superior performance. As we reveal, managers of a market-leading German energy distribution company do not utilize performance measures to manage the performance of their employees; rather, operational excellence is achieved through mechanisms ultimately based on trust and responsibility. Building on observations at this firm, we put forward a set of proposed characteristics of companies that may not require formalised individual performance measurement systems in order to achieve high performance standards.